


Kaleidoscope of Feniseca

by LyricDreamweaver



Series: 33 Ocassions for TF2 Guro [11]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Blood, Butterflies, Gen, Insects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricDreamweaver/pseuds/LyricDreamweaver
Summary: Butterflies don't just perch on delicate petals and sip on nectar.





	Kaleidoscope of Feniseca

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I tried to go for some flowery prose about something that's downright terrifying about butterflies.

The gossamer-winged ladies held their vigil at his door, in the dark corners he missed. In the shadows, they feasted on the flies and delighted in mosquitoes, keeping the room clean and harvesting the unworthier insects like livestock. However, if _those_ insects wanted to breed, they could take it outside, the council of silk-winged ladies had decided. Once or twice their orange wings blazed in swoops and spirals through the room only to descend on an errant fruit fly or lost mosquito lady, but that only ever happened during the midday, when they knew The Man would not be there to see them. Whenever The Man returned to his room, the harvester butterflies retreated to their corners and unfurled their wings, just quiet enough to be brushed off as the shells hock ringing in The Man's ears.

While he slept, the male butterflies crept out of the dark. Silk-winged and delicate, they crept across the fields of rough sheets and settled wherever they could. Tonight, The Man was shirtless and sleeping deeply on his side, so the silk-winged males took their places on his shoulders, his collarbones, one perched on his wrist, wings flapping just light enough.

The gossamer-winged males unfurled their long tongues, lapping at the salt of The Man's body before rocking their little heads back and forth, proboscises penetrating deeper the more they swayed their little heads. Once they found the salty red ore they sought, their little fits of motion stopped and the fragile winged men were content to drink, as if from orchids and carnations instead of from a man's flesh, their wings falling open in their contentment.

One particularly bold butterfly—late to the supper—alighted on the very peak of The Man's cheekbone, crawling slowly toward his only eye, proboscis slipping under the lid discreetly. Tears, to this member of the butterfly gentry, were much more valuable than the salty red that thrummed under The Man's skin.

Before the first strains of dawn, the gossamer-winged males retracted their tongues, some creeping with full bellies off to their secret places and others springing into flight leaving just the barest trace of wings across The Man's skin.

The _tear-drinker_ was the last to leave, just as he had been the last to arrive. Reluctantly, he folded his tongue back up—preferring flight with his half-full belly—and settled in a particularly crowded corner of harvester women.

The man woke up once the sun had risen, hand rubbing at his eye. His shoulder itched. In a few hours he would no longer be the nectar the butterflies wanted. Instead, he would be sulfur, potassium, chloride, nitroglycerin, gunpowder smoke, and brimstone. He would carry the scent of carrion back only to shower it off.

The _tear-drinker_ watched The Man leave, silently bemoaning his half-full belly and contemplating the sound of fruit flies that buzzed far-off.


End file.
